Waiting for Now
by Nerdmom1701
Summary: My submission to the KAEX challenge "Anniversary". This is VERY angst-ridden and not exactly HEA, but we know how the story ends, so all's well that ends well! Allura writes in a journal about the time waiting for Keith to return with Black Lion, and marking the Anniversary when everything changed.
1. Chapter 1

I am waiting for my love.

Here on the balcony for one hour each day: one half hour before second sunset and one half hour after.

I wait, watching the sunset and counting the stars where he could be and where he has gone.

They have stopped trying to get me to stop doing this – all this time, everyday – they don't understand why I continue, they don't understand.

It keeps me grounded; it keeps me sane.

He loves to watch the second sunset on Arus. We would watch it together, before, me in his arms. We'd talk about everything, and sometimes nothing at all.

So I watch for the both of us now.

I have this silly dream that he comes to me at sunset – that he comes home. He will be piloting Black Lion, of course. That's why he's gone – why he left me here to wait. I don't like being left behind, but it was the only way. We couldn't both go – Arus needs me, but I'd give anything to be by his side now.

He writes to me sometimes, out there, on the run. He writes about his mission: to find Black, to get Intel, to let us know where the allies and our enemies are. He always leaves a message for me as well. In the beginning, he sent me long letters – messages attached to the data stream. He told me his hopes, his fears, how much he loves me and misses me. I don't get as many personal letters anymore.

He feels guilty about this – I can hear it in the short messages he sends me, at great personal risk to his safety. I try to tell him not to be. I understand why. It's the same reason I don't send as many letters, either.

It becomes too hard, sometimes. Seeing his words, hearing his voice in my head – the pain of missing him becomes too overwhelming. I know that I would cease to function after awhile. He can't afford to miss me too much, but I have to let him know that I'm okay.

That I'm safe.

I have to know that he's safe too. I have to have faith that he will find Black soon and we will be together again.

He feels that he has to stay strong for me, and maybe he does – it would crush me to know that he was suffering. It would crush him to know that I suffered as well, so I don't let on. I compartmentalize my misery into tiny points of time. I block it off from everyone but myself – it is my burden alone and I will not share. For him I will endure, and it makes me stronger.

I write to him about inconsequential things. I tell him about the antics of my thirteen year old "niece", Larmina. She is actually Aunt Orla's granddaughter, the only child of her beloved late son, killed in the war with the Drules. Aunt Orla has been raising her, but she is like me in many ways – too spirited, too curious, too questioning of her place in the world. Her father was like a brother to me, so it was no burden to take the young teen away from her exhausted grandmother, and have her here, where her passions can be explored.

I have not told him that she is my heir. It is the one concession I have made to the council, since I will marry no other. If he doesn't return, my line will end with me and Larmina will be Queen. He would understand – it is a logical thing to do, but I don't want him to think that I am making alternate plans. That I have lost faith. I will not accept him not returning, and nothing anyone tells me will convince me he's gone.

If he is gone, then I am gone – in spirit if not in body.

Some of them have already started to forget about him – about us. Sometimes I'm glad because the less people remember about him, the safer he will be. I don't remind them either. I don't like or want the pity.

It is our anniversary today. It was five years ago today that he and the other men walked into my life and turned my world around, quite literally. It was also one year ago, ironically, that he and the men quietly walked out, and left my world a better place for their time here. Arus celebrates the end of the war. I celebrate the return of Voltron. The return of hope. The beginning of love.

My boys feel the same way as me. I have spoken to each of them today at various times, whenever they can call me unobserved. Their mission is no less important than his, but they sleep in warm beds at night, and they have each other, so I worry about them less. They know to come here if things get too hot on Earth. I will grant them asylum on Arus, the consequences be damned, but they are careful, and the time is not yet right.

I sent him a letter a week ago to a trusted drop point. I will read the one he sent, tonight. Perhaps I will allow myself to be weak tonight and wallow in our separation. Perhaps he will join me in it, just for the night – but not at sunset. Sunset is only for love and happiness; for remembrances of things past and hopes for things to come. It is not for this time – it is not for now.

I will read his letter in the chapel. If it is good news, I will say a prayer of thanksgiving. If it is not, I will look to the gods – Arusian ones or the Terran one, I don't care – for strength and help for my love. It is there that my tears can fall and my heart can break a little, for a while, and there is no one to berate me.

Then I can pick myself up, dry my eyes and go to my balcony for sunset.

By day, I do my duty. I work, I rule, I laugh, smile and argue. I mediate, consider, and pass judgement. I plan, plot, and deceive the ones who would make us weak at the cost of their honour. I do all the things that I am expected to do.

I am present.

I am here – except for one half hour before second sunset, and one half hour after. Then I belong to him. One hour per day, I am there, wherever he is. I will be looking at the stars where he could be and where he has gone, and wishing him, my Keith, a happy anniversary.

I am waiting for you, love.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N-**Here, on the last day of the month, is the sequel to my first one-shot - thanks for all the encouragement to write it. This is dedicated to my husband, who loves the three of us just this much. Also, to Drowningblonde and Julie Horwitz, who, I think, wanted it most.

**Disclaimer-** I do not own Voltron, just my imagination.

* * *

I am running to the Black.

Day and night – through smoke and storm and starlight fire, I follow the trail where it leads me.

I am alone.

I had to fight to make it so. Only I could bear this burden. She and the men fought me bitterly to share in this quest, but in the end, there was no other choice. I am Black's other half, and he speaks only to me.

I can feel his pain. It is distant, almost lost on the solar winds, but I sometimes can feel his pull. He is calling me to take him back to his pride – his kin. To take him back home.

The enemy. They do not know that he allowed himself to be taken – to protect his pack. He knew that it was the price for allowing his pride to go home. He is the alpha, and he protects his pack.

He fights those to have him, now. He does not kill - the need to protect is strong and without me he cannot do everything he wishes - but he fights them, still. They cannot find out all his secrets – he won't allow it. Instead, he calls to me, the only one who can hear him, through our bond, to find him.

There is a reason that I am Black's pilot. They think that it is because I am the team's commander – and that is partly true, but that is not all.

Black is the colour of what I would do – of how far I could go. The pull to cross that line – to give an eye for an eye – wars with my desire to live in the light and be with my love. It is too easy to tell myself that I live in the black, so others – so she – can live in the light. At the moment, that is the truth. I am on guard for that moment when I can come back – back from the black. I live for that moment. That feeling resonates in my lion, in Black, and it further bonds us in our trials.

Others have surrendered to it. They started out on the side of the angels, and surrendered their peace to the demons of the darkness. Wade is guilty of this, as are others. Committing their own atrocities under the hallowed flag of justice – when freedom fighters become terrorists – hurting the innocent and those they once swore to protect. That is the line I cannot cross, but it is there, and I would be a fool to ignore it.

When I get too close, when the pull becomes greater than my strength, I think of her – my Allura – and I am centred again.

Allura. She is sunshine and sweetness and happiness – my reason for living. She is my light. While she is alive, while she is safe, the darkness can't consume me.

Does she even realize? I hope not. The pressure of that responsibility could crush her spirit, and she has the weight of a world on her shoulders. I know that diamonds are made in such pressure, but I will not risk it. Not with her.

Not for me.

I devote part of my mission to making sure that she is safe. I listen – listen to the whispers that speak in darkness and feed on the evil that creeps to the shores of our civilization – of our peace. I meet those who would help us and I watch those who would betray us, who would use us to further their own ends.

I pilot a shipping transport for the moment. I have long hair, and a beard, and brown contacts to hide my appearance. The work is numbing, but the ship goes many places and I can blend in – they don't notice a lowly transport pilot. I see and hear a great many things, and some of it is useful to my mission.

I send what I can to Coran. He is an ambassador for Arus now, on Earth, and he spans the bridge between the men on Earth and my love, on Arus – my home. He has contacts that are far superior to mine, and he is able to get my messages to her, from time to time.

He has asked me to write this journal, of my time away, and I write it for him, but I don't want anybody to read it yet. Maybe never. The words are painful to read and may not help to heal those who might read them, if I don't return. I would not want these words to be the last they thought of me. They only reflect now, not the sunshine and sweetness and happiness that was my life before, and will be after this is over, I pray.

If I am on a planet, I will watch a sunset and think of her. I have seen all different kinds, on many worlds, but they give me no peace – not like before. My arms are empty, and my heart fills with memories that hurt me to visit. They are filled with sunshine and sweetness and happiness and I am left exposed to the evil of the place that I am now. Her light shines through me, in those times, and I cannot hide it from view. Only darkness covers me – protects my life. Only darkness protects my mission.

I left the men a mission, one year ago. I sent them to Earth, to be surrounded by our enemies and to keep them closer than our friends, in the hopes that they will be able to strike when the time is right. They know to go to her if she needs them – they protect her even from Earth, and she protects them by giving them a place to escape to, if necessary.

It is one year ago that I left her – since I walked away from my light – and started on this path to the Black. I received a letter two days ago and saved it to read it today. I kept hoping that she would forget, but I know she hasn't. I know that she will never lose faith. She will keep on, even when common sense and sanity would tell you to stop. She does it for me – for us – and her faith renews mine.

She will be sad tonight, and her unhappiness tears at me – the sadness that we are apart. I have often fought the urge to go back to see her, just for a little bit, to know and to see that she is safe with my own eyes. I don't because I would never be able to leave her. Only my ignorance of how it would feel, allowed me to leave in the first place. I know what it feels like to be without her now, and I couldn't do it again.

Not if I had her there, in my arms.

I think that she knows this, because she never asks me to just come back to see her. Maybe she would not let me leave her again, either.

Normally she writes to me of little things, and it soothes me. I hear her voice in my head, and I am calm. Even her sadness at that time, only hurts me a little, because I know that she is safe and a planet full of people, who will keep her that way, surrounds her. I sent her a letter for today, to tell her I think of her, and the day that my life began to have a higher meaning, five years ago – the day I became a better man. I wrote to tell her that I am safe, that I am well.

That I am hers.

I will read her letter to me in a secluded spot, where her sunshine and sweetness and happiness can fill me and not be seen by those who would stand between my mission and me, between the Black and me – between her and me.

Tonight, as always, I will look to the horizon and listen for the Black, to tell me where I must go next. Then I will scan the heavens and search for a binary star system, and a little blue planet, where my love sits on a balcony at second sunset and looks back at me, and waits for my return.

I am running to you, love.


End file.
